Yun Jin focused her full attention, channeling her spiritual power to repeatedly flush through her golden core.
That black-and-white core spun faster and faster as the spiritual energy surged wildly into it. Drawing on the overwhelming medicinal strength from earlier, she kept pouring energy into the core.
Before long—
She reached the golden core's limit.
It spun with increasing speed, its surface swelling ever so slightly.
Then, with a crisp crack—
A fracture appeared across its surface.
Rather than panic, Yun Jin felt elated. Gritting through the pain, she pushed even more spiritual energy inside.
The crack deepened, then more and more formed.
Until finally—
With a loud shatter, the golden core burst apart. The pain was intense, but Yun Jin remained calm. Breaking the core to form the Nascent Soul was a path every cultivator had to walk. As the core shattered, the vast reservoir of spiritual energy it once held began to rampage, threatening to scatter in every direction.
Yun Jin relied on her formidable spiritual will to immediately suppress the chaos.
Then—
The energy gathered again, slowly reforming at the very spot where her core had been.
She didn't know how much time had passed.
Eventually, the swirling energy began to take the shape of a baby.
The figure grew more defined, developing limbs and facial features.
When the form fully took shape, it was a perfect miniature version of Yun Jin. Quite adorable, really.
Yun Jin looked at her Yuányīng and couldn't help but smile.
This little one, identical to herself, felt almost like a daughter.
The only difference was—
This Yuányīng was fully under her control.
From now on—
Her soul, her essence, and her spiritual power would all be housed within it.
As long as the Yuányīng lived, she lived.
If the Yuányīng perished, so would she.
To protect it, many cultivators would even cultivate special arts. Some forged armor for their Nascent Soul, others enhanced its speed. Countless techniques existed to improve its survivability.
Yun Jin tried channeling her divine consciousness into the Yuányīng, then had it leave her body. She hovered in midair, curiously observing her own seated figure below. She took a moment to sense the small new body. Though the limbs were tiny, her five senses were far sharper than in her physical form.
A Yuányīng leaving the body might be able to perceive things her original self could not. But compared to the physical body, the Yuányīng was far more fragile, yet far more important. Because of that, most cultivators rarely took the risk of letting it leave the body. Across the infinite worlds, there were many that also practiced golden core and Nascent Soul cultivation.
However—
Aside from the Simplified System cheat, most of Yun Jin's memories and experiences had been suppressed.
Only as she cultivated would they gradually return.
Now—
She could instinctively grasp some basic applications of the Nascent Soul. But for the more advanced techniques, even if she had learned them in another world, they were currently out of reach. Yun Jin happily zipped around the air with her Yuányīng.
Then, Tian Po Sword suddenly said with some confusion, "Young Master, your Yuányīng looks a little... odd."
"Odd?" Yun Jin blinked.
Tian Po Sword floated closer and motioned for her to look at his blade as a mirror.
Curious, Yun Jin leaned over.
Very quickly—
She spotted the anomaly.
Everything else about the Yuányīng was normal.
Except for one thing.
Its eyes.
One eye was entirely black, the other completely white.
This was...
Yun Jin recalled her Tai Chi golden core.
So after the Tai Chi core shattered, it manifested as dual-pupils—one yin, one yang?
"This is a mutated Yuányīngl," Tian Po Sword explained. "Some mutations make the Yuányīng weaker than usual. Others make it far stronger. I don't know yet whether this mutation is a blessing or a curse."
Yun Jin studied her own dual-colored eyes, then chuckled. "I think it's a good thing."
She seemed to have a natural affinity for Tai Chi in this world.
Her sword was Tai'a.
Her golden core was the Tai Chi golden core.
And now, the same motif had passed on to her Yuányīng.
She suddenly remembered Cang Li's strange encounter.
Cang Li had glimpsed a mysterious Tai Chi disc that gave him inspiration to forge the Tai'a Sword.
After that, he'd searched everywhere for it but never found it again.
Yun Jin thought that if she had time, she should try looking for it too.
That Tai Chi disc might be an important destiny waiting for her.
Still, with her current cultivation, she was far too weak.
Even if she found it now, the most she could gain would be a slight insight, like Cang Li once did. She wouldn't be able to grasp anything essential.
She should wait until she became much stronger. Perhaps then, she'd reap more than expected.
After observing for a while, Tian Po Sword added, "Well, at least it's not any weaker than a normal Yuányīng."
Yun Jin grinned. The Yuányīng reentered her body through the crown of her head. This tiny companion would stay with her all the way until Mahayana stage. To reach Mahayana, she would need to endure a Tribulation. Once she passed it, the Nascent Soul would vanish, replaced by a higher form—the Primordial Spirit.
Some believed that was the true moment of Divine Transformation.
What most called the Divine Transformation stage was merely the act of opening up a sea of consciousness in the mind, creating a place for the future Primordial Spirit to reside.
"Young Master, are you about to derive the Nascent Soul-stage Mystic Codex?" Tian Po Sword asked, suddenly tense.
At the moment, Yun Jin had only reached the new realm. Without a proper cultivation method, her combat power wouldn't increase much.
"Relax," Yun Jin said, settling into a cross-legged position once more.
She pressed the Simplify button.
[Evolving Nascent Soul-stage Mystic Codex to perfect level requires 300 advanced uses.]
Yun Jin's eyelid twitched.
As her cultivation increased, the system's demands were getting more and more outrageous. If she wanted to keep rising quickly, she'd need to earn a lot more Emotional Value. Even though it pained her, Yun Jin still spent the required uses and directly obtained the technique.
[Mystic Codex: Up to Nascent Soul stage. Technique grade: Earth-tier, low rank.]
This marked a major leap in grade, jumping from Mystic-tier to Earth-tier.
That didn't mean Earth-tier techniques were always superior, or that Heaven-tier ones were necessarily better than the Mystic Codex.
During the Nascent Soul stage, these supposedly higher-tier methods might not even match the Mystic Codex in power, and certainly wouldn't suit Yun Jin as well.
It was simply that the Mystic Codex could only be cultivated up to the Nascent Soul stage for now, which limited its classification.
Yun Jin began reviewing the changes to the Mystic Codex after its evolution.
The five divine arts remained the same.
But their power had clearly been enhanced.
Which wasn't surprising.
Based on Yun Jin's guess, the next major transformation in the Mystic Codex would likely come during the Divine Transformation stage.
At that point, she would open the Primordial Spirit Pool within her sea of consciousness, and the Mystic Codex would probably develop new divine arts linked to both.
Without hesitation, Yun Jin began cultivating the new Mystic Codex technique.
Her progress was smooth. Before long, she succeeded in mastering it and officially gained the power of the Nascent Soul realm.
Tian Po Sword was standing guard, fully prepared to intervene at any moment.
But just as he began to tense up—
Yun Jin suddenly jumped to her feet and playfully launched a blast of Nascent Soul spiritual power at the wall.
Tian Po Sword: "???"
Nascent Soul spiritual power?
Wait, she had already finished reconstructing the entire technique?
How long had it even been?
Was it even an hour?
And she had already derived the next-stage cultivation method and fully mastered it?
Tian Po Sword was stunned.
He couldn't help but recall his own early days.
Back then, he had seen countless wonders while traveling with Wan Dao Saint. He'd witnessed miracles and met more geniuses than he could count.
But someone like Yun Jin...
Alright, he couldn't pretend anymore.
Tian Po Sword nearly cried.
He really had never seen anything like this.